


Fish Bait

by deaththerabbit



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 01:26:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14250099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deaththerabbit/pseuds/deaththerabbit
Summary: Kanata finds a strange human dropped into his pool.





	Fish Bait

The clear blue pool that rested deep in the woods remained undisturbed by outsiders, home to a single mer-creature that had never seen a single person, human or otherwise, in the woods.

Kanata spent his time at the bottom of the pool for the most part, but he sometimes came up to the top to watch the night animals move around without scaring them off. He was curious about what lay beyond the safety of his pool in the woods, but he could not leave to find out what was there.

It was a stormy, blustery night that Kanata first saw another person, three in fact. Two burly men dragged along a smaller man with short pink hair. From what Kanata could tell, the two burly men seemed to mean harm against the smaller one.

Kanata kept to the far edge of his pool, eyes just above the water, his ear fins peeking out along with his blue hair. He knew that it would be unlikely that he would be noticed, considering the state of the weather and the way that the water tossed and turned mercilessly.

It was impossible for him to tell what the men were saying, but he could tell that it wasn’t friendly. The ball and chain attached to the pink haired man’s foot further substantiated his guess that these men meant harm.

One of the men picked up the ball and chain, while the other dragged the pink haired man over to the edge of the deep pool, and though the pink haired man fought and struggled, he could not get away.

The man holding the ball and chain said something else and then tossed the heavy metal ball down into the pool. The pink haired man followed shortly thereafter, yanked down into the pool by the weight of the ball.

Kanata ducked below the surface of the water to watch the pink haired man fall below the surface. He noted the terror on his handsome face and the way he struggled futilely against the weight of the heavy ball.

A stream of bubbles escaped the man’s mouth, as water rushed in, and Kanata could no longer sit by idly. He swam down slowly towards the drowning man, green eyes blinking kindly at him.

Kanata reached out and wrapped one arm around the man’s midsection. Instead of heading back up to the surface of the pool, he pulled him through an underwater cave, his long tail powerful enough to pull along the metal ball that kept Shu from getting to the surface.

The cave was long and dark, and it was quite a while until it began to open up again, at which point Kanata began to swim upwards again.

By the time Kanata broke the surface of the water into a large cave with a single opening in the ceiling to let the light in, the pink haired man had stopped breathing.

Kanata pulled him along to dry land and heaved him up onto the ledge, pushing the heavy metal ball up beside him. Then he grasped the ledge and pushed himself up onto it, flipping his tail out of the water carefully.

He peered down at the man’s face, realizing that he had stopped breathing, and tipped him over to allow the water he had swallowed to flow out of his lungs.

At first, nothing happened, and Kanata wondered if the man was dead. Then he began to sputter, working into a painful, wet cough as he spit up all the water he had swallowed. His breathing was harsh and pained, and he seemed to have very little strength.

Kanata watched him curiously for a moment. “It’s okay now.” He said slowly, testing out each word before he said it, as if he were trying to make sure he pronounced each word correctly. He was unaccustomed to human speech, having spent the majority of his life speaking with the fish he regarded as his friends and family. He could not help but add his favorite little phrase to the end, swaying back and forth, “puka, puka.”

The pink haired man flinched, and tried to scramble away, stopped short by the metal ball holding him in place. “What do you want from me?” He asked rudely, purple eyes staring not at Kanata’s face, but instead at his long tail.

“You were drowning in my home.” Kanata pointed out slowly, dragging himself closer to Shu. He tipped his head to the side slightly. “Who are you?”

Seeming to find the mer-creature mostly harmless, Shu relaxed slightly against a boulder. “You may call me Shu.” He spoke in an arrogant, haughty tone, even though he was clearly exhausted and out of breath.

“You can call me Kanata, puka puka.” Kanata repeated the slow swaying motion, a serene smile on his face. “Why were you drowning in my home?”

“I was thrown in here to die, obviously.” Shu snapped harshly, beginning to shiver with the chill of the cool night air seeping in from the hole in the cave roof.

“Stay.” Kanata said, noticing the shivering, and slipped back into the water. He dove down to a little alcove that held some of the things his family had collected before they had disappeared. He snatched up a waterproof bag and swam back to the surface.

Shu hadn’t moved an inch from his spot, too exhausted to do so. His shivering had increased, and the chattering of his teeth was proof of that.

Kanata pulled himself back up onto the ledge, bag hanging from one bare shoulder securely. Once he had made it back onto the ledge, he dragged himself over to Shu and settled as close to him as he would allow.

He struggled to work open the waterproof bag, unused to opening human contraptions. After a few moments of fidgeting with it, the bag burst open.

Kanata reached his clawed hands into the bag and removed a soft blanket. He presented it to Shu with only two words, accompanied by the swaying motion that Shu would forever associate with him. “Puka, puka.”

Shu hesitantly took the blanket from him, wrapping himself in it while the mer-creature laid down and rested his chin on the tops of his hands.

Kanata stayed quiet, watching Shu curl up beneath the blanket. The smile on his face was serene as ever, but it seemed a little brighter than usual. He finally had someone to talk to, even if he was incredibly rude.

He watched as Shu drifted into an uneasy sleep and shifted closer to watch his sleeping face. Humans were strange, but Kanata was sure that this man couldn’t be bad, even though someone had literally thrown him into the pool to drown him.

As Kanata considered the strange man, he was unaware of the feelings that were already beginning to blossom within him.

**Author's Note:**

> I love rarepairs, and this was a lot of fun to write??? I'm not quite comfortable writing Kanata yet, but I hope I wrote him in character! Thanks for reading!!


End file.
